THE WIENER HOLOCAUST LIBRARY MARKS 90 YEARS
The Wiener Library at 90: Highlights From the Archives
This exhibition commemorates the anniversary of the founding of world’s longest continually existing archive on the Nazi era and the Holocaust. It showcases the breadth and depth of the Library’s collections, encompassing unique items recording pre-Nazi era life; the struggle against Nazism; efforts to document and record antisemitic and anti-Roma persecution and the Holocaust; Nazi documents giving evidence of their crimes; material relating to the lives of Jewish refugees, and efforts to document other genocides.
The exhibition demonstrates the range and the importance, and sometimes fragility, of the Library’s collections.
The Wiener Library at 90: The Wiener Family Story
This exhibition traces the history of the family of the founder of the Library’s founder, Dr Alfred Wiener. Born in Potsdam in 1885, Wiener was a noted anti-Nazi campaigner by the time of the Nazi accession to power in 1933. In the same year he relocated to Amsterdam for his own safety and founded the Library’s predecessor organisation, the Jewish Central Information Office. This exhibition will examine Wiener’s life of anti-Nazi work and also explore the fates of Wiener’s wife and daughters who became trapped in German-occupied Holland, and were eventually arrested and held in camps, including Bergen-Belsen. Towards the end of the war, they were released in a rare prisoner exchange. Wiener’s daughter Mirjam later went on to move to London and marry Ludwik Finkelstein, who had his own story of incarceration and escape during the war.
“Our archives contain a trove of vital evidence about the crimes of the Nazis and their collaborators. We are the world’s longest continuous Holocaust research institution, and one of Britain’s most important archival collections. This exhibition highlights the diversity of our unique collections, and also tells the story of our founder, Dr Alfred Wiener, and his wife Dr Margarete Wiener, who lost her life during the Holocaust.” said Dr. Barbara Warnock, curator of the exhibitions.
“In Britain, we have only just begun to recognise the exceptional importance of the collections gathered in The Wiener Holocaust Library. The Wiener family story is one of astonishing survival against the odds and so is the story of the Library that Alfred and Margarete founded in Amsterdam 90 years ago. Our vast and growing holdings attest to the relevance of the historical record for future generations. Looking after the evidence of the Holocaust and other genocides is our responsibility to those who were murdered and those who survived. We can only do this with the generous support of the public whose engagement with our work will be key to ensuring the Library is still accessible for the next 90 years and beyond.” said Dr. Toby Simpson, Director of the Library.
Exhibitions are available for visitors of the Library until 20 October 2023.
Wiener Holocaust Library
To mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Library’s predecessor organisation in Amsterdam, the Library is staging two new exhibitions.
Telegram sent by Camille Aronowska to Alfred Wiener, 30 January 1945. Margarete Wiener died while on a prisoner exchange transport from Germany to Switzerland, just a few days from freedom. Wiener Holocaust Library Collections